Before the Auction, Someone Must Open the Back Door

When I think about high street rental auctions in practice, I find myself looking past the shopfront towards the locked door at the back. Who has the key? Does it open into a usable yard, a shared passage or somebody else’s storage? These are small questions until an occupier needs to receive stock or remove rubbish. England’s auction powers give councils a route to bring qualifying empty premises back into use. They do not make the building straightforward.

Much of my working life has involved reading leases for retail occupiers. A phrase that looks harmless on the page can become a weekly inconvenience or a substantial bill. Rights to use a rear entrance, the position of a meter and responsibility for a shared drain all matter. With a long-empty shop, the people who knew how these arrangements worked may have gone. The auction process needs to recover that knowledge, not merely assemble the documents that happen to survive.

There is a difference between providing information and providing information someone can price. A bidder told that there is a service charge still needs to understand what services are supplied, how costs are divided and what expenditure is anticipated. An old account may be useful, but it may also describe a building that was more fully occupied. The headline rent is only one part of the commitment. Rates, insurance contributions, utilities and maintenance still have to come out of the shop’s takings.

A condition schedule is part of the bargain

Repair is where I would slow the process down enough to be precise. The auction framework includes requirements concerning the condition in which premises are provided, and its tenancy arrangements are not simply whatever lease a landlord ordinarily uses. Even so, the starting condition needs a proper record. A photograph of a stained ceiling establishes that there is a stain. It does not establish whether the leak has stopped, who must repair its cause or whether the ceiling is safe.

I would want the proposed occupier to be able to distinguish three things: work to be completed before occupation, defects recorded at handover, and obligations falling on the tenant afterwards. Those distinctions belong in the legal paperwork as well as the surveyor’s notes. Otherwise, two bidders may offer rent on entirely different assumptions about the same roof. That is not a useful test of rental value. It is partly a test of who has overlooked the larger liability.

Access before bidding matters for the same reason. An experienced operator may arrive with a building surveyor and an electrician. Someone taking a first shop may arrive with a tape measure and a relative. A council cannot remove every difference in experience, nor should it pretend to advise each bidder on their business. But clear documents, workable viewing arrangements and answers shared with all bidders can reduce the advantage enjoyed by those who already know which awkward questions to ask.

This is less visible work than announcing an auction. It requires council officers, property advisers and solicitors to resolve questions rather than pass them around. There may be missing records, disputed access or a landlord who responds slowly. I do not take that as an argument against using the powers. I take it as a reason to acknowledge their administrative cost. A council needs time and expertise to act as an effective intermediary, especially where the property has been neglected.

There is a risk of becoming so concerned with perfect information that nothing happens. Existing buildings always contain uncertainties, and ordinary lettings proceed with them every day. The practical aim is not to eliminate risk but to make the significant risks visible and allocate them clearly. I would judge an auction partly by its handover: whether the keys work, the agreed works are complete and the tenant understands the bills. Opening that back door before bidding begins is a modest place to start.